High Energy Density Radiation Tolerant Capacitors for Cryogenic Temperature Applications

Two of the largest and critical components in virtually all NASA Power Processing Units (PPUs) of spacecraft, probes and landers, are energy buffer and DC-link capacitors, used to minimize ripple current, voltage fluctuations and transient suppression. Current capacitor technologies have severe performance limitations at cryogenic temperatures, especially when combined with exposure to radiation. The proposed development will address the evaluation of these two capacitor designs, using a disruptive solid-state, polymer capacitor technology, developed for PPUs of electric vehicles. NanoLamtrade; capacitors, are produced using a nanolaminate composite, that has 1000s of high temperature polymer dielectric layers. The capacitors are self-healing, they can handle high continuous and pulsed currents, and the nanothick polymer dielectric has high breakdown strength, which results in superior energy density and specific energy.nbsp; The capacitors are formed using 1-2Mrad of ionizing Beta radiation, and have high resistance to radiation exposure, as well as superior parametric stability with voltage and temperature in the range of -196oC to +200oC.